New York State civil servants are protected from discriminatory pay

If you work in New York’s classified state civil service, the classification and compensation director must apply an equal-pay rule when classifying jobs and setting salary grades. The state may not set a lower wage rate for a worker in a protected class than for a worker outside that same class in the same civil-service title and geographic area who does similar or substantially similar work. The comparison turns on skill, effort, responsibility, and working conditions; the geographic region can be no larger than a county.

You do not have to enroll. The rule governs how the state classifies positions and sets compensation. The law extends that rule across protected classes, including age, race, sex, disability, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, military status, and others.

Sen. Velmanette Montgomery and Assembly Member Linda Rosenthal carried the bill. Their memo cited a 2003 federal report that found a persistent gap in women’s earnings even after accounting for factors including occupation, industry, and job tenure. The Senate passed it 54–8 in June 2019, with all eight no votes from Republicans, and the Assembly passed it 140–6. Gov. Andrew Cuomo signed it on December 26, 2019.

Cuomo also signed a follow-up law on April 17, 2020. Sponsored by Montgomery and Rosenthal, it applied retroactively to December 26, removed the original requirement to place substantially similar titles in the same salary grade, and limited individual wage comparisons to workers in the same title. The equal-pay rule above is the narrower version now in force.